As Milady Commands
by achelikeflowers
Summary: Age manipulation, extended travel periods. Arya and Gendry have been running from the Lannisters and their dogs for years, and they come upon a familiar site. High Heart and the weirwood stumps remind Arya of home, of Winterfell and her fathers godswood. With only Gendry for comfort, Arya has to figure out a way to cope, even after all their time on the run, together. One shot.


"Isn't it funny, that one day they were there, ruffling your hair playfully as you frowned at them, and then they were gone, they just didn't exist anymore," Arya Stark murmured as she sat with her back against a white weirwood stump. She exhaled hard though her nose.

Gendry lumbered up through the trees carrying an armful of logs and kindling for a fire to burn the chill from their bones. "What's funny?" he asked in a serious tone.

"N-nothing," Arya stuttered quickly, inwardly scolding herself for speaking aloud.

Gendry eyed her curiously. He knew that she was acting strange, Arya could see in his eyes that he was trying to figure out the way that she is acting, and why. But she can't talk about it. Can't talk about her father, and the godswood back at Winterfell that still stood; the home of the old gods, where he father was always found after serving justice upon deserters. Arya felt at home within the godswood at Winterfell, certainly more than at the dais within the main hall, talking with lords and ladies, even with its warm walls.

Arya was a Stark through and through. Friends of her fathers always commented how alike she was to her late aunt Lyanna, who was to have wed the then-King of the Seven Kingdoms Robert Baratheon. Lyanna was wild and free. They even said that Arya looked like Lyanna, with her dark hair and bright grey eyes. Though her older sister, Sansa's, friends called her Arya Horseface, and the men employed for stable duty often called her Arya Underfoot for her often getting in the way trying to saddle and mount a horse, any horse, as soon as was physically possible. Arya had always loved running with a rouncey or, if she was lucky, a great destrier—and when she was younger on her pony as well—she loved the rush of wind that pushed through her hair as she pushed the steed to full strength. She felt free. No responsibilities. No obligation to be _lady-like_ like Sansa or her mother, Catelyn.

"Slow down!" Arya's father, Lord Eddard Stark, Ned, would yell after her as she made a mad dash, as if her life depended on it. She pushed the horse until both rider and steed were out of breath, and waited, feeding the horse an apple or a carrot, and resting upon a great tree trunk, catching her breath and laughing as she watched everyone else catch up, minutes behind.

Right now, she thought how good it would be to return to a time that was so carefree, where she could be the child that she was. She was only ten-and-two when she had left Winterfell for Kings Landing. Now she was ten-and-six, a woman grown, but still on the run from the Lannister lions. After Arya's father had died at the hands of Joffrey, the boy-king, and his awful mother Cersei Lannister, she had sworn to take her revenge, she knew not when nor how, but she was definitely going to exact her vengeance on them and the Clegane brothers—the Hound and the Mountain—Lord Tywin Lannister, the Ticker, Ser Meryn, Ser Ilyn, Polliver, Dunsen, Raff, Weese. All of them would pay for the last few years of her life. And any Lannister, or Lannister bannerman or dog she found she would slaughter on the spot.

Gendry watched her carefully; and as she noticed his eyes on her face, she rounded on him and snapped, "What?"

He simply looked away and continued to try to spark the fire with his flint, with little success. Arya walked over to where he sat and took the tools from his hands and begun to strike with such hatred, as if she were striking Joffrey's skull to start the flames. Though soon, tiny embers began to flame among the kindling that Gendry had set out, Arya gently blew on the glowing orange embers in order to get the fire started, and to roast the rabbit that Arya had caught hours earlier.

As soon as they had gathered the animal onto a spit—after skinning and gutting it—the smell of the meat filled both of their nostrils. Neither of the travellers had eaten anything in the past two days, how they starved for something fresh to eat, other than the stale oat bread and dried out black sausages they had been living on since they left Harrenhall nearly a moons turn prior.

Soon, the creature had finished cooking, and Arya took the animal off of the stick they had roasted it on and rationed a quarter of the rabbit to herself and another quarter to Gendry, whilst carefully wrapping the rest of the creature and storing it in their bags. Should worst come to worst, Arya had to make sure that there would be enough food for them to survive without having to hunt strenuously, especially considering the fumbling oaf of a hunter who was her companion and 'protector.'

Arya sank her teeth into the flesh of the rabbit, and a satisfied sigh escaped her lips as the sweet, slightly stringy meat filled her mouth. This was the first time they had eaten fresh game since Harrenhall, and even then, it was merely morsels within stews and soups.

"Oh gods," Gendry gasped with a contented sigh as he took in another large mouthful of meat. "This is the best thing I have ever tasted."

"It's just because you're hungry, stupid," Arya scolded him with a smirk upon her lips. "Everything will taste better because we've been living on live worms and shrubs for the past two weeks or so."

Gendry screwed up his face, "_You've_ been living on live worms," he accused with a slight grin to let her know that he was joking.

"And you thank your lucky stars that I have been, otherwise I would have been too brain-dead to find the lovely High Heart," she informed him, waving her arm around at the large circle of white stumps.

"Oh, thank you, milady," Gendry snorted. "Where would I ever be without you?"

Arya flung a piece of hot rabbit flesh at him, narrowly missing his right cheek as he ducked out of the way. "Do not call me _milady_," she demanded of him for the umpteenth time.

"As milady command," he said with an idiotic smirk on his face, his bright blue eyes shining in the dim of the night.

Arya pounced upon him knocking the rabbit leg he had been sucking on from his grasp and holding his arms firmly above his head as he was pinned to the grassy ground beneath them. "Do not," she growled, "call me milady."

"Well, that's not very ladylike," Gendry breathed as he was staring up into her bright grey eyes that were now ferocious as a wolf as she stared into his own blue ones.

She released him from her grasp and climbed away from his warm body, collecting her furs and perching atop one of the large white weirwood stumps. She was done, she was too tired to fight or argue, too tired even to shove him for the stupid nickname he had picked for her.

Arya's breath escaped her lips in small puffs of steam as her warmth evaporated into nothing, and her mind drifted back to her father; to his weathered face, and grey eyes, the smile he used to give her and the way that the skin around his eyes would crinkle as he looked at her. And then the thoughts turned dark, smoky and she could hear the crowd yelling, shouting for the traitor's head. Her vision began to blur as tears began to well within her eyes.

Gendry sat beside her on the same stump, though he didn't say anything, for which Arya was grateful. She couldn't wipe the image of her father out of her mind. She had seen his face only moments before his head was slung from his shoulders by the very sword that Lord Eddard Stark had used to behead deserters from the Wall for the many years that he had been the lord of Winterfell.

"Ice," Arya breathed, remembering.

Gendry gently placed a hand on top of one of her own, it was the lightest touch, as if he was afraid that Arya would break his nose for even thinking about laying a single hand upon her. Yet, Arya did not move, she did not squirm or pull away, nor did she punch or hit or shove Gendry away. She leaned into his warm figure as silent tears streamed down the porcelain skin of her face.

Arya felt Genry's calloused thumb roughly wipe away the streams of water running from her eyes. His thumb and forefinger then gently clasped her chin as he drew her face towards his, so grey eyes met blue ones, and there was no laughter, there was no anger, there was just two children who had been forced to grow up too soon, and who had had no one else to look to.

Arya felt her cheeks flush as she continued to stare into the depths of Gendry's bright blue eyes. There was a depth of sadness within him that he never talked about, an intensity that inevitably settled on his face each coming night. His father had not wanted him, had not wanted to father a bastard child, and his mother had been a whore, who had died when he was not even eight years old. Instead, he had been dropped at a armoury and once he was strong enough to wield a hammer, he had been put to work making horse shoes, and eventually had begun to construct armour for riders and knights, and even royal squires and members of the kingsguard every once in a while. Arya knew that they used to call him the Bull at the armoury, due to his stubbornness; she could not help but agree with those men she had never met. Arya had even adopted Bull as a personal insult for Gendry during the last four years that they had spent together on the run.

"Arya," whispered Gendry as he looked into her wintery eyes. Her eyes that were so full of anger and hatred, and yet they always looked so hopeful, like today was their last day on the run.

She simply looked at him. Really looked at him, studied the planes of his face, the light beard that had begun to grow across his jaw, and the way that his dark hair had grown in uneven since the last time that Arya had cut it for him. It now hung over one of his eyes, and he was constantly pushing it from his field of vision. Arya reached a hand up and pushed the hair that lay over Gendry's right eye behind his ear, she still had not disengaged from their eye contact. She couldn't look away from him; she felt that he was the only thing that was actually keeping her sane at this point. Without Gendry, she would have turned wild much sooner, she would have transformed into her direwolf Nymeria, and she would have personally hunted down every last man on her list. She would not have rested until each and every one was dead. But as she looked upon Gendrys' face, she felt all of this rush from her once-hot blood, the way that he looked at her; she could not help but feel that she was the only person in the world. She felt herself blush as she stared back into his eyes, now nervous.

Though she could not stay nervous for too much longer, as Gendry placed his hand behind her neck and pressed his lips against hers. Arya was stunned for a second as she tried to figure out how they had got to this point. Gendry's lips stayed upon hers, she unconsciously wrapped her arms around his waist and neck and she grasped onto him. Her lips parted slightly as Gendry's tongue ventured into her mouth, she moaned quietly and clung tighter to his waist, while entwining his hair through her fingers. The kiss became urgent, deepening as Arya pushed him onto the grassy ground and straddled him as she had earlier in the evening, though with a completely different action in mind. She kissed his mouth ferociously, she kissed down his neck, and onto his collarbone; she nipped the soft skin with her teeth as she felt him groan beneath her. This was her forgetting. _This was a long time coming_, she realised as she continued to kiss him with the same urgency.

All of a sudden, he stopped; he took his hands from her tiny waist and looked deep into her grey eyes, the eyes of winter itself. "Arya, stop," he insisted as she tried to continue her trail of kisses. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Arya looked confused, startled even, for a moment, and then a sneaky grin masked her face, "Trust a Bull to ruin the moment."

He sighed with a laugh, "I'm serious Arya. I don't want to do anything you don't want to do."

"Well, Mr. Bull," she said with a slight laugh to herself. "Does this look like I don't want to?" she breathed as she ground her hips onto Gendry's. A moan escaped both of their lips simultaneously. "So stop constantly questioning everything, and just kiss me."

"As milady commands," Gendry said with a small laugh and a smirk on his face as he quickly pressed his lips firmly to Arya's before she could argue or complain.


End file.
